Irresistible Apple Dessert Recipes (2024)

Our apple pies, crisps, cakes, cookies, breads and other apple dessert recipes will fill your kitchen with the flavors of fall: crisp apples, creamy caramel, fragrant cinnamon, toasted nuts.

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Vanilla Apple Gratin

This simple, orchard-fresh dessert captures the flavor of vanilla ice cream melting into the warm apples in a pie—but more quickly, and with way less fat and sugar.

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Spiced Apple Mochi Cakes with Miso Caramel and Walnuts

Chef Ji Hye Kim of Miss Kim in Ann Arbor, Michigan, shares the recipe for these lightly spiced, apple-flecked cakes. Their slightly chewy texture comes from sweet rice flour, a typical ingredient in many Asian sweets. Topped with miso caramel, toasted walnuts and whipped cream, this dessert fires on all flavor and texture cylinders.

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Apple Crumble

One bite of this gloriously simple recipe will remind you that, sometimes, you don't mess with a good thing. Chef Jason Qureshi of River Roast in Chicago prefers to use Granny Smith apples for their firm texture and tart taste.

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Apple Sour Cream Kuchen

This German-style, not-too-sweet, yeast-raised cake begs for a cup of coffee. For an extra tang, you can serve it with a dollop of lightly sweetened sour cream.

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Danish Pastry Apple Bars

One of Gail Michael's students shared this apple dessert recipe with her long ago. The bars taste like apple pie in a baking pan.

Our Best Bar Cookies

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Apple-Almond Brave Betty

We gave a classic dessert a new name, in honor of all the people who have cooked in servitude or fought for social justice over the centuries—and we updated the flavors, too, with almond cookies and a splash of bourbon.

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Spiced Apple Tarte Tatin

This easy, French-style upside-down apple tart relies on frozen puff pastry. The spice flavor comes from Chinese five-spice powder, a widely available blend with flavors of clove, black pepper and star anise.

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Harvest Apple Bars

Tammy Post's Iowa State Fair blue-ribbon recipe doesn't skimp on apples, which results in incredibly moist and indulgent bars.

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Maple-Walnut Apple Cobbler

This easy skillet cobbler is bursting with harvest flavor: crisp apples, cinnamon, toasted walnuts and sweet maple syrup.

Easy Crisp and Cobbler Recipes

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Caramel Apple Cookies

Creamy caramel frosting finishes these apple-filled cookies.

Our Favorite Fall Cookie Recipes

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Freestyle Apple Tarts

This recipe from Iowa's Rapid Creek Cidery restaurant looks daunting, but it's actually five very simple parts that are easily made ahead. (You'll end up with extra candied nuts; they're great alone or with cheese.)

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Fresh Apple Cake

This nutty comfort cake from Sharon Buckner of Rhineland, Missouri, gets a sugary top and caramelized gooey bottom as it cooks. Don't be surprised by the thick batter; it will bake into a moist, dense cake.

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Cider-Spiked Apple and Pecan Tart

Apples are gently cooked in butter, then arranged in a prebaked crust and brushed with jelly. The result is an edible work of art.

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Applesauce Spice Cake

No granulated sugar is added to this apple dessert recipe; the sweetness comes from cider, fruit and applesauce. The recipe comes from Sandra Schifferle of Lansing, Kansas.

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Amish Apple Dumplings

We often equate Amish food with comfort. Here's our version of a favorite apple dessert you might find at Amish-based restaurants in the Midwest.

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Crumb-Topped Apple Trio Pie

Crisp on top, sweetly tender inside, this pie blends tart and sweet apples—Granny Smith, Jonagold and Braeburn—with sugar and cinnamon under a brown-sugar and walnut crumb topping.

Make Your Best Pie Ever

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Dutch Apple Pudding Cake

With apple pie filling on the bottom and a moist walnut cake layer on top, this dessert makes the perfect ending to a fall or winter meal.

Rise and Shine Cranberry-Apple Crisp

Spiced coconut streusel adds crunch to healthy apples and berries.

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Cider-Baked Stuffed Apples with Salty Caramel Sauce

Nuts and cranberries fill these simple baked apples that cook in your slow cooker. Top them with Sea Salt Caramel Sauce and, if you like, a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

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Apple, Cranberry and Pecan Galette

A free-form tart is the anxious pie-maker's best friend. No fussy crimping, and any torn edges or lumpy folds just add to the charm (especially when sprinkled with sparkly raw sugar).

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Apple Pear Praline Pie

"The key to this pie is the apples you use," says Mary Schrier of Cumberland, Iowa, who got the recipe from an old handwritten family recipe book. She suggests not using Red Delicious apples. Instead, try Granny Smith, Jonathan or any sweet-tart heirloom apples. "There are quite a few orchards that are starting to carry the heirloom apples, and this old recipe is just waiting for them," she says.

Favorite Apple Pie Recipes

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Indulgent Caramel Apples

Wrap your favorite tart or sweet apple in caramel (we even created a less sticky version), then unleash your imagination as you add on nuts, cereal, dried fruit, candy, decorative sprinkles or whatever else inspires you—and your taste buds.

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Nutty Caramel Apple Crisp

A double dose of caramel—baked in with the fruit and drizzled on top—elevates the humble crisp to new levels of indulgence. Mix two types of apples for the best texture. The tender apples cook down and create a sort of thick sauce; the firm apples hold their shape.

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Apple-Butter Cakelets

Caramel sauce adds a creamy-sweet finish to individual Apple-Butter Cakelets created by Midwest Living in honor of Illinois' Amish bakers. You can choose from two Prairie State ingredients, apples or pumpkins, for this treat.

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Streusel Apple Bread

A touch of lemon, chopped cranberries and walnuts make this quick bread seem like coffee cake. Norma Hendricks of Hopedale, Illinois, likes to serve this for dessert. "I made this by combining a couple of recipes," Norma says. "I think I started with a cranberry bread, but most of my kids don't like cranberries. Then I saw an apple bread recipe, and I thought streusel would be good on top."

20 Sweet Quick-Bread Loaves

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Apple-Toffee Tartlets

Try Jonagold, Gala or Granny Smith apples in this easy 3-step dessert. Refrigerated piecrust speeds prep time.

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Single-Serving Caramel Apples

Joan Wagner of Overland Park, Kansas, considers this baked apple dessert her easy-entertaining recipe. "You can make these up to six hours ahead and cover them with plastic wrap, so the puff pastry doesn't dry out," she says. "The desserts can bake while your coffee is brewing."

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Spiced Apple Drops

An apple a day tastes even better in cookie form, especially with frosting on top!

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Maple-Apple Pudding Bake

The Wisconsin Maple Producers created this recipe to showcase maple syrup and juicy apples in a moist, rich dessert.

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Apple-Cranberry Walnut Pie

Sweet apples balance the tang of cranberries in this fall favorite.

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Easy Apple Cranberry Slab Pie

Purchased puff pastry adds to the ease of this dessert recipe, but the real star is the filling the pairing of sweet apples and tart cranberries. Homemade icing rounds out this crowd-pleasing potluck pie.

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Apple Pumpkin Sunflower Bread

We packed a bushel of fall into this homey loaf: pumpkin, apple, nuts and spices.

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Apple Scones with Spiced Maple Butter

They're light, buttery and full of apple flavor. We almost hate to cover up the baked-on apple slice with the whipped maple butter. Almost.

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Apple-Cinnamon Pull-Apart Bread

Biscuits, apples, orange juice? Sounds like breakfast to us. Orange juice adds brightness to both the bite-of-autumn bread and the cream cheese icing drizzle.

Warm and Comforting Breakfast Breads

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